


All Too Soon

by yet_intrepid



Series: Asleep in My Arms [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Comfort Food, Gen, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Neglect, Protective Sam Winchester, Sick Dean Winchester, Weechesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 21:50:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2404133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John doesn't ask much, he really doesn't. But he does ask that his two-year-old kid not play with the goddamn stove.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Too Soon

John thinks it’s a good idea, renting the apartment. No maids to worry about, a full-size refrigerator and stove, a separate bedroom for the boys. And it’s a run-down sort of place, so he doesn’t have to sign a lease. Month-by-month does them all just fine.

It was a lucky find, he thinks, as he shoves the key in the lock and twists it open. Not a bad deal.

And then he sees Sam, and changes his mind. Right then and there, all the luck goes out the window. How can a kid who’s not even three years old have dragged that chair over and turned on the goddamn stove?

“Down, Sam,” he snaps, and then, “Dean!” Sam starts to cry; John scoops him up in one arm and uses the other hand to pull the chair away from the stove.

“Sam, you don’t play with that,” he says. “That’s for big people. Me. And Dean.”

“You said I was big!” Sam wails.

“Not big enough,” John tells him. Where the hell is Dean, letting his brother get into this? Kid could’ve burned the place down. “Dean! Get your ass out here!”

“Dean’s  _sleeping_ ,” Sam protests. He’s still crying, all hiccupping breaths and big fat tears trickling on his face. Baby tears, and he thinks John should let him use the stove. God. And Dean’s sleeping? It’s four in the afternoon.

He puts Sam down on the chair, warns him to stay. Then he heads off into the boys’ bedroom to see what Dean’s playing at.

Dean’s sleeping, all right. Bundled up under his covers with a sweatshirt on. Sam’s bed is stripped bare, messily, and the sheets and blanket, along with that old motel towel Sam insists on dragging everywhere, are all draped over Dean.

John steps closer. Dean doesn’t stir.

“Dean?” John crouches down by the bed, shakes his shoulder a little. “Dean, look at me.”

Dean blinks awake. He only meets John’s eye for a second before looking down. “Sorry, Dad,” he says.

“What did you do?” says John.

“Fell asleep,” says Dean. He stumbles tiredly over his words. “Left Sammy. He said he’d be good, Dad; I hope he didn’t make trouble—”

John feels the anger surge up then. At Sam for saying he’d be good and then _using the fucking stove_ , at Dean for taking a baby’s word as permission to go AWOL, at himself for thinking this place was a good idea, at the apartment for having dangerous shit like that stove in the first place.

“Make trouble?” he repeats. “He sure as hell made trouble, and landed you both in it. Now get out of bed.”

That’s when he hears dishes clattering from the other room.

“Damn it, Sam,” he mutters, and he starts getting to his feet, but by the time he’s up Sam’s in the doorway, his hands protected by a washcloth as he carefully holds a steaming bowl with a spoon.

John starts to tell him to go back to the chair where he was supposed to stay. But then he stops. Just stops. Stands there. His two year old kid wasn’t playing with the stove. He was heating up soup.

John didn’t think at two he could even open a can.

Sam totters a little and John reaches out, instinctively, to take the bowl. But Sam rights himself and clutches it closer.

“For Dean,” he says. “Cause he don’t feel good, Daddy. I made it for Dean.”

John looks over at Dean. He’s out of bed, like John told him to be, but he’s wavering on his feet. Pale, too. Shivering.

“Get back in bed,” John tells him. “Sam made soup for you. You got a fever?”

Dean nods as he climbs back in. “Think so.”

“I should have something to bring it down.”

He goes out to find the med kit. There’s no children’s Tylenol or any crap like that, but he figures seven’s not too young for regular stuff, if Dean only takes a little. He really should have something for kids in here, though, in case Sam gets whatever this is.

And Sam will, he’s sure, because when he goes back with a cup of water and the meds for Dean, Sam’s right there in the blankets with him, one hand holding that stupid towel and the other laced in Dean’s.

John makes sure Dean takes his meds, then leaves him to his soup. He’s got to go turn off the stove, anyway.

Except Sam already did.

John sinks onto the couch. At last, or all too soon, they’ve outgrown him.


End file.
